


and then the sun stopped shining and the stars disappeared, and the earth was dark

by caryophyllaceae (xphantomhive)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Eating Disorders, Fighting, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentioned Bro, Post-Sburb, Self-Doubt, Self-Harm, apparently i just love inflicting pain on my favorite characters, both of which are mentioned in passing, happily though no one dies which is a step forward for me, mentioned Grandpa - Freeform, mentioned dad, more or less hopeful ending, pacing, probable ptsd and depression, self-hate, sorry john :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 02:23:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7995187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xphantomhive/pseuds/caryophyllaceae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he is a water clock; he is the waves in your sand, the tide lapping at your shore, and the tsunami in your head.</p><p>he is an astronomical clock; he is the stars in your sky, the planets circling your head, and your milky way.</p><p>he is time itself, and you could not love him more than you do.</p><p>(or: in which dave punches john in the face, rose throws all of dave's swords from the window of their seventh story apartment, jade shoots dave in the foot, and john breaks to a million pieces on the kitchen floor.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	and then the sun stopped shining and the stars disappeared, and the earth was dark

**Author's Note:**

> songs i listened to while writing this: i walk the line (the halsey cover, obviously this is by johnny cash), is there somewhere? (halsey), and fall for you (secondhand serenade).
> 
> i had to look up different types of clocks just to get a half-decent description.
> 
> bluh. i tried.

_You know that our breathing is the inhaling and exhaling of air. The organ that serves for this is the lungs that lie round the heart, so that the air passing through them thereby envelops the heart. Thus breathing is a natural way to the heart. And so, having collected your mind within you, lead it into the channel of breathing through which air reaches the heart and, together with this inhaled air, force your mind to descend into the heart and to remain there._

 

* * *

 

In the dark, it becomes ever more present that he is too good for you.

The streetlight shines through the cracks in your blinds that have been broken for months now, and you can see all of him, from head to toe—from his downy blonde hair to the freckles over his cheekbones like stars to the scars on his chest from strifes from years ago. You connect his freckles like constellations and skim your fingers over the scars on his chest and he does not wake up, because unlike you, Dave is a heavy sleeper. He tells you that you’re too good for him, but you know he only says it to make you feel better; you are pasty like snow in winter and no amount of brushing can make your hair look nice and your thighs are too thick but you can still see your ribs and some days it seems like skipping meals just isn’t enough. You are _ugly_ and he is _pretty_ , and you don’t know why he seems convinced it’s the other way around.

It is on nights like this where you just can’t sleep, no matter how hard you try, though it isn’t like you sleep more than two hours at a time, anyway. You climb out of bed and jump when your feet hit the wooden floor because it’s freezing, because it is the middle of December and your heat went out last month but you don’t have enough money to get it fixed. The clock on the bedside table tells you that it’s one a.m., and you think if it could speak, it would tell you that you’re crazy and that you should just go back to bed. But you can’t, you know you can’t, so instead you pace back and forth in the small hallway outside of your bedroom and ignore the goosebumps that jump up on your legs and arms.

Everyone is usually asleep when you pace, and no one knows that you do it, not even Dave. Tonight, though, Rose walks out of hers and Jade’s shared bedroom and stops in her tracks when she sees you, raises a pale blonde eyebrow, asks you a question without words. Rose has always been good at that. “It’s nothing,” you say, but it is definitely something and by the look on Rose’s face you can tell that she knows it is. “Just not sleepy. That’s all.”

Rose shakes her head at you. Her blonde hair is messy and her lipstick is smudged and you wonder if she forgot to take it off before she went to bed, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen Rose look this discomposed before. “Don’t you know that you can’t lie to me, John?” She asks, and you see her tapping her thumbs against her bare thighs and this isn’t the first time she’s done that in front of you—you think it might be a nervous habit but you’re too afraid to call her out on it, too afraid she’ll get mad at you, and the last thing you would want is your friends to be mad at you. “You’ve got a million tells. We’ve been friends since we were ten. Why are you up at this ungodly hour of the morning?”

You aren’t sure how to reply. You dig your fingers nervously into your ribs and feel the bones prod your fingertips, makes them tingle and the tingle makes it all the way to your elbow before it dies out completely. “Nothing,” you respond, because you don’t want to get into this with Rose. It’s too late and she should be asleep but she doesn’t even look tired, her violet eyes aren’t even foggy and she hasn’t yawned at all, she looks completely awake and it’s almost scary how fast Rose can get herself to wake up. “I just don’t like sleeping.”

“You mean you don’t like sleeping with Dave,” Rose fires back immediately, and you flinch back at her words, like she’d hit you. “You know he loves you, John. Why do you have this preconceived notion that he’s so much better than you, that he hates you?”

“It isn’t just a notion,” you respond, and your voice is starting to get whiny and you know that you sound like a three-year-old in the middle of K-Mart with his mom who just got told he couldn’t have the Lego set he wanted. “It’s the truth.”

Rose sighs, heavy and long. It has weight behind it, weight that hangs in the air and tries to suffocate you, to slip in through your mouth and make your lungs burst. “No, it isn’t,” she gives back, and you notice now that she hasn’t stepped any closer to you, that she’s stayed at the end of the hallway, that she’s stayed at a far distance and you know she’s doing it because you might get angry if she’s too close, if she’s breathing your air. You hate that you feel like that but you just can’t help it because once you ruled the wind, you were the God of breath and you need your own space, your own personal bubble. “Go back to bed, John.”

“You’re not my mom,” you say, petulant. “You’re not my dad.”

“Why don’t you make some pancakes?” Rose tries, now, moving one step closer and you flinch back, flinch back like she’s standing right in front of you, like she just stepped on your toes. You know that everyone could stand so much closer to you because you’re so thin and you’re only five feet tall, and Dave is six feet tall and all muscle and Rose is five-seven with big curves and Jade is five-eleven with more muscle than Dave, you think. You’re so small and they’re so much bigger than you, but you take up all of the room, won’t let anyone else have it. “Jade’s been sleeping since six, Dave’s been sleeping since five. I think this may be an appropriate time for us all to get up, don’t you think?”

“Pancakes just make me fatter,” you respond. “I’m already disgusting.”

Rose sighs, soft, soft enough to make curtains rustle gently or to make your bangs scatter from your forehead. She takes another step and you take a step back, but she doesn’t stop this time, just keeps going, keeps going until you’re pushed back against the wall and she’s standing less than a foot away from you, and all of the warning bells are going off in your head but Rose hasn’t moved back yet. “John,” she says, carefully, reaches her hand out and touches your shoulder with her fingertips, and you jerk back but she doesn’t stop, doesn’t back away, presses her whole palm to your shoulder and you whimper pitifully. “You’re okay. You can have pancakes. When was the last time you ate something?”

“A week ago,” you blurt. You hadn’t meant to tell because you know she’ll get mad at you now, know she’ll hate you, know she might yell, but she doesn’t seem to be doing any of those things because she’s still looking at you and her palm is still on your shoulder and she looks so sympathetic, like she’s blaming herself for all of this. “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head, takes her palm back, steps another step closer and wraps her arms around you, and then you are being hugged by Rose Lalonde. Usually you would’ve taken this as an opportune pranking moment but you just can’t anymore, not since your dad died, not since the game ended. You aren’t the same John Egbert and you hate it more than you hate who you are now. “Don’t apologize,” she tells you. Her breath rustles your bangs. They brush against your forehead and tickle the skin there. “It’s fine. You’re fine.”

“What the fuck is all the noise about? It’s one-thirty in the fuckin’ mornin’,” you hear from a step down the hall, and you know that it’s Dave, know that you and Rose woke him up and that you didn’t mean to. “John? Rose?”

He doesn’t sound angry, anymore. He sounds scared. Nervous. Sad. And it’s all your fault, for making him worry, for being yourself. You break out of Rose’s arms and brush past the both of them, to the living room, and you tuck yourself into a tiny ball and fall asleep there. No one bothers you, but you think Dave came to check on you once.

 

* * *

 

You wake up at noon the next day and the entire house is silent. You’re sure that Rose is at her second job and that Jade is at her first, which leaves you and Dave in the house and you aren’t even sure if he’s here or not. In the afternoons, sometimes, he likes to leave and take a walk and he tells you it’s because he likes to go to the park and watch the families, the children and their parents because they all look so happy, and you’ve never known what to make of that. When you stand up, gravity crushes you like the roof caving in, and your head starts pounding against your skull and you let your breath out in a loud _whoosh._

The first thing you do is use the bathroom. Then, you walk to yours and Dave’s room and peek inside. Dave is there, but his back is turned to you and you guess that he must be sleeping. He has his legs curled underneath him because you don’t have enough money for a queen bed or even a full one, so you’ve got a twin, and he’s too tall to fit on it. You pull the door shut and walk back to the living room. You count your steps while you pace around the sofa, and by the time you reach one-thousand your hip bumps into the glass table by the doorway and the only thing on them—Dave’s turntables—fall to the ground with a loud _crash._

Your breath catches in your throat. It gets stuck in your esophagus and lodges itself there, and you feel as though you are suffocating, you are dying. Dave may be a heavy sleeper, but he isn’t heavy enough of a sleeper to sleep through a noise like that, so while you’re standing by the door, glued to the spot with your own breath suffocating you, you hear the sound of his footsteps padding quietly against the carpet as he comes running. When he sees what you’d done, the mess you’d made of one of his most prized possessions, he freezes to the spot. You finally find your voice; the breath caught in your throat bursts like a bubble blown in the summer. “I’m so sorry,” you crack out. “I’m so so so so sorry, _fuck_ , I didn’t mean it.”

Dave doesn’t say anything for five minutes exactly, which scares you more than if he yelled at you, if he told you to leave the house and never come back. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me right now?” is the first thing out of his mouth when he finally says something, and you shiver but you aren’t sure if it’s because the house is freezing or because you’re scared. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. He advances toward you, and you step back but you only get one step before you’re pressed against the doorway. “Are you seriously that fuckin’ clumsy, John? Fucking hell, I try to be so sensitive for your dumb ass and you pay me back by doing some shit like this. What the fuck, John, I can’t even fuckin’ believe this.”

“I didn’t mean it,” you try, weakly.

“You ‘didn’t mean it’. Okay. When have I heard that before? Right, every single time you do somethin’ like this, John. Somethin’ that’s fuckin’ ridiculous that I forgive you for every time because you’re fucked in the head or some shit, the same way we all are, and I don’t know why the fuck you get special treatment for it. I mean, I’m a piece of shit and I know it, but you’re a piece of shit too and you think you’re a perfect angel.”

You can feel all of the anger you tamp down boil in your chest all at once and rise from your stomach to your throat and it burns, burns like if you swallowed an entire bottle of hot sauce and then ate a ghost pepper. “Fuck you,” you manage, stepping forward. You’re afraid but you’re too mad to pay attention to it, because you made a mistake and now Dave is taking out his anger on you and you _can’t believe it_.

“Fuck you, Dave. You act like you know everything about me because we’ve been friends since we were nine but you _don’t,_ okay? Did you know that I’ve been starving myself since the game ended? Huh? I bet you didn’t, because you’re so self-centered that all you can focus on is yourself. I thought you were supposed to be a knight, Dave? What kind of fucking knight can’t save his own boyfriend? Have you caught wind of the scars on my thighs yet? No? No, you fucking haven’t, because all you care about is yourself. You care about nobody but you, just like your Bro. You’re exactly like him, you know that? No one says it because they’re all afraid but I’m not. You’re just like your fucking Bro.”

Your chest hurts and you’re heaving breaths and you think you might need your inhaler, but as you try to push past Dave to find it his fist collides with the side of your face and you stumble back, hit the door and slide down to the ground. Your nose is bleeding and all you can think about is the fact that it’s getting all over the white carpet Rose saved up to buy for months. She barely even bought herself food for it and now you’re getting blood on it. Before you can retaliate or even stand Dave hits you again and your head slams roughly against the door. “I’m nothing like my Bro,” he hisses through his teeth. “Nothing. You fucking know that, you asshole.”

You gulp. Swallow. “I thought I was a piece of shit,” you respond. You don’t mean to be sarcastic but you just can’t help it, and maybe you deserve it because your best friend and boyfriend just punched you twice and you think you might have a concussion. “Am I both?”

Dave sneers. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him this angry. “Wow, I love how the person who just got punched in the fucking face is being a smartass,” he says. “I guess you are both. You know what else I guess? Your dad is fucking happy that he’s dead because he doesn’t have to deal with _your_ bullshit on a continual basis.”

You curl your fingers and dig your nails into your palm, make a fist and try to punch Dave but you’re just too weak for it, weak because you haven’t eaten in a week and the last thing you had was a glass of water with the Tylenol you took for your headache. “You’re fucking pathetic. Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror?”

“I don’t know, have you ever looked at _yourself_ in the mirror? Because you’re pretty fucking pathetic too, Dave.”

This time, he grabs you up by the hair and yanks hard, punches your right cheek and throws you down like a ragdoll, lets your already pounding head slam against the floor, and you know for a fact that you have a concussion. “I hope you die here,” is the last thing he says to you before he turns on his heel and disappears into the hallway. You swallow and it feels like your lungs are collapsing but you crawl to the phone anyway, try to reach for it but you can only brush your fingertips against it because you’re too short and your arms aren’t long enough. But then the front door opens and you turn to see Jade and Rose standing there, frozen in their tracks. Jade is the first to move, which is weird, because Rose usually reacts faster in a crisis.

“Holy shit, what happened to you?” Jade pretty much shouts, and it does nothing good to your head, but she scoops you up in her arms and holds you close to her chest and kisses your forehead softly.

“I’m sorry about the carpet, Rose,” you say quietly, and Rose laughs brokenly and you think she might be crying.

“Don’t apologize, John,” she responds, almost in hysterics. “What happened? Were we robbed? Where is Dave? Is he alright?”

“His fault,” you mumble, head falling against Jade’s arm. “Dave’s fault. Not a robber.”

You can’t see Jade’s eyes, but you think that if you could, they’d probably look like two green fires. As much as Jade loves Dave, you’re her brother, and she’s told you that you always come first to her, and that if Dave ever hurt you she’d _kill_ him. “Rose, I want you to take my car keys and my car and get John to the hospital. Then, I’m going to deal with Dave, and I think you might need to get him his own hospital room and bracelet.”

You get transferred from Jade’s arms to Rose’s, and you’re sure that you can hear Rose trying to convince Jade to just come with you, to leave Dave alone because he likely already feels guilty about what he’s done, but you doubt she’s having any of that. You close your eyes because you’re more tired than you’ve ever been but Rose shakes you awake with a soft hand, says, “No, John. I think you’ve got a concussion, that means you can’t sleep. You’ve got to stay up.”

You murmur back a response and aren’t even sure what you said, but you know that you stay up just like Rose said because you feel every bump in the street on the way to the hospital and you feel her pick you up and you smell the hospital when you step inside. Everything is hard to hear but you’re sure that they take you immediately and say you’re an “important case” and you feel them put an IV in your arm and then you think you fall asleep finally, because everything goes black and the hospital is all white.

 

* * *

 

When you wake up again, you’re back at home, in bed. The clock on the bedside table tells you that it’s only five p.m., so you get up slowly and pad out of the room. Your entire face hurts and you realize that you can’t see out of your right eye even though you’re wearing your glasses, and when you reach up to feel you’re met by the fabric of a bandage over your eye. Jade is sitting at the island in the kitchen that Rose insisted on getting, but her back is turned to you. Rose is in the living room, watching some weird reality show and knitting something blue. Dave is nowhere to be seen. You wonder what happened while you were out.

“Uh, hi guys,” you say, leaning around the corner. Rose looks over at you and smiles softly, and Jade cranes her neck to see you and then bursts out of the chair she’s sitting in and nearly tackles you in a hug. “Oh. Um. Hello, Jade.”

As if she senses that you’re uncomfortable, Jade pulls out of the hug. She gives you a wide grin and peppers your face in kisses, and you can’t help but give a little giggle at the feeling because it tickles. Rose is walking over to the two of you now, and when she finally reaches you both, Jade steps back and lets her pull you into a gentle hug. You’re still uncomfortable, but you do your best to push it aside. You need to try and get more comfortable with this, with people being in your personal space. You aren’t a God anymore. “You were malnourished,” Rose says when she pulls back, a glint in her eye that you think might be sadness. “And not all of the cuts on your thighs were healed, so they had to be treated and wrapped up. Your concussion should be gone by now, but the swelling on your face hasn’t seemed to go down yet.”

“Basically,” Jade cuts in. “You were more fucked up than fucked up.”

“Where’s Dave?” You ask, finally. Sure, you’re mad at him, and it’s most certainly his fault you ended up in the hospital, but you said some things that shouldn’t have been said.

Jade chuckles at your question. Rose rolls her eyes. “The ER.”

“What?” You ask now, suddenly alert. Rose tells you to calm down quietly and presses her palm to your shoulder like she did before, only this time, she rubs small circles in it and you untense a bit underneath her careful touch. “Why? What happened? Is he okay?”

Rose takes a breath in. “He’s fine,” she says. “Jade, always a woman of her word, gave him what he deserved for hurting you. She shot him in the foot.”

“What? Like, with a BB gun, or something?”

Rose sighs instead of breathing in this time, and says, “No. Jade shot him with her grandfather’s shotgun.”

Jade makes a noise akin to a snort. “You’re not so innocent, Lalonde. You dumped all of his swords from our bedroom window. That one he doesn’t even know about! At least he knows that I shot him in the foot.”

You start giggling. You just can’t help it. Rose and Jade both look seemingly shocked when you start, if not a bit tense, but it doesn’t take them very long to relax and smile at you. It’s kind of rare to hear you laugh, so you can’t say you’re surprised that they’re treating it like they’ve spotted the real life Bigfoot in the woods. “You guys are the best. Seriously.”

 

* * *

 

Dave doesn’t come home for another two hours, and by that time, you’re making Rose and Jade dinner. You’re going to try your best not to eat, but now that Jade and Rose know that you don’t they’re probably going to force you to. When he does finally get home, Dave limps into the kitchen. He’s got a set of crutches and his left foot is wrapped in gauze, and you keep your back turned to him because you aren’t sure you can look at him right now. You keep your eyes on the food you’re making and listen to the sound of his crutches bump together. He probably set them up against the counter. Before you know it, his arms are around you and his chin is resting on top of your head. You freeze up, say, “No.”

“Yes,” he responds. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything I said and I definitely shouldn’t have acted the way I did. I deserved to be shot in the foot. Jade was right to do what she did.”

“Rose threw your swords out the window,” you reply. “Last time I checked, they were all gone. I think someone stole them. It wouldn’t be surprising. They’re expensive.”

Dave chuckles. You feel it vibrate through your head. “I deserved that, too.”

There are tears in your eyes and you’re trying to pretend that they’re not there. You’re also trying to stop them from dripping into the omelette you’re making for Jade, because you aren’t sure she’d really like to have your tears cooked into her dinner. “Yes you did,” you say, lips pressed into a thin line. Your voice is wavering. You know Dave can hear it, but he pretends like he didn’t. Most people would call that insensitive. You would call it Dave trying to help you stay as strong as you possibly can. “You’re such an asshole.”

“I know,” he gives. “I’m sorry.”

Great, now you _are_ crying. You turn the stove off and set Jade’s dinner aside even though you know that it’s not finished yet, and then you turn quickly on your heel and bury your face in Dave’s chest, which is level with your face because of your height. You wrap your arms around him and dig your fingernails into his lower back even though you’ve barely got any left because you bite them to the core, and you let out a loud, disgusting sob that’s muffled by his shirt. It’s the shirt with all of the holes that you told him to get rid of two months ago. “Dude,” he says. “Why didn’t you talk to me about all of this shit you had going on? You know I’m always here for you, right?”

Of course you know that. “Yeah,” is all you can say back, but it doesn’t seem to phase Dave. He tightens his arm around your waist and you’re pretty sure he’s using the other one to keep himself balanced. You almost forgot that your sister shot him in the foot. “Yeah, I know.”

That night, you stay in bed all night, but you don’t sleep. You watch the rise and fall of Dave’s chest from the streetlight through the cracks of your blinds, and you run your fingers softly over the scars on his chest from strifes with his Bro, who you know he’s nothing like. When he starts waking up you lay back and close your eyes like you’re sleeping, and he returns your favor; you feel his fingertips brush over your ribs, then you feel them trace the scars on your thighs. “You’re too good for me,” he mutters delicately, touches his lips quickly to your forehead, and goes back to tracing his fingertips over your scars. Your heart fills your lungs, and you smile carefully.

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes i try to make artistic fanfictions but they're usually just shitty.
> 
> thanks for reading anyway! <3
> 
> the quote used in the beginning of the story is from nicephorus the solitary.


End file.
